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Who here plays Fender amps?

#2
For a long time, Fender bass amps were crap. Not so much the amps, but the cabs. They were great for guitar, but Ampeg's bass amps and cabs blew them away, so they pretty much let Ampeg win unchallenged for decades. But in the last 10-15 years, Fender has really gotten their bass amp act together. Trouble is, they have a stigma from the old days.
 
#3
That would have been my guess. When they were advertising their new pro series stuff all over the GC and MF ads I wondered if people would play them more, but no one really seems to care.

I wonder too if the absence of a micro amp has something to do with it, as those are so popular of late.
 
#5
fender isn't really a name people look for in bass amps, it's just so, vanilla if you will. I've always liked the looks of their gear but not the way it sounds, which if my history was correct, was Leo's intention. Looking at the first couple fender basses will give you an idea about how little they really understood about bass guitar and how it would be used.
 
#7
Had a Fender M80 combo for a couple of years. 15" with about 160 watts. Nice amp, good bass tone and it easily covered most of our gigs. Bought it used for $100....can't beat that!
I won't go into the mid-60's Blackface Bassman that I sold in '73. Too Painful.
I agree with Jimmy, Ampeg has really been the Brand for Bass for a while. We'll have to see if they can maintain it with their new manufacturing.
 
#10
Stevens1212 said:
Do y'all remember back in the 60's when the Fender Bassman was the only bass amp to play. It was the standard then. I still see once occasionally in vintage shops.
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Sorry, but there was never a time when the Bassman was the only bass amp to play. It was popular with some bassists because it had more wattage than a B-15, but the cabs sucked and made the higher wattage of the Bassman pretty much useless. Kustom and Standel were more popular for bass than the Bassman.
 
#12
GearHeadBassMan said:
fender isn't really a name people look for in bass amps, it's just so, vanilla if you will. I've always liked the looks of their gear but not the way it sounds, which if my history was correct, was Leo's intention. Looking at the first couple fender basses will give you an idea about how little they really understood about bass guitar and how it would be used.
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First of all, Leo's work always struck me as function over form, so I don't agree with you on that. Second, I am not even sure what you mean with that last sentence.
 
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#13
ThunderLizard said:
Had a Fender M80 combo for a couple of years. 15" with about 160 watts. Nice amp, good bass tone and it easily covered most of our gigs.
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Same here, but had mine for about 20 years. It has a nice even tone, built-in compression & chorus, footswitch jack, effects loop... pretty sweet for the price! :hyper:
JimmyM said:
Kustom and Standel were more popular for bass than the Bassman.
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He's right there. My high school had a nice Kustom combo that killed.
 
#15
+1 on the Bassman 250/210.

Did a bit of research before I bought mine. Picked up a used one at a really good price and other than sorting out a few mystery vibration noises, it's been an incredibly versatile sounding rig. Much richer sounding than my 400rb/bag end 15 combo. Can be very bright and punchy yet does old school very well.
 
#16
Fender Bassman 400 head and Fender 4x10 Pro SL 4x10 cab
P1010044.jpg


I had this rig for a couple of years. Never had a problem with it, and it sounded sweet. Sold it because I needed the money for a trip to the mainland.

The guy who bought it loves the sound he gets from it.
 
#17
I absolutely love Fender guitar amps. Got a Hot Rod Deluxe, and a blonde Blues Jr. Sweetest clean tone, ever. Never personally owned any Fender bass gear, other than a BXR Spectrum cab, back in the 80's. Head was a GK, then a Peavey. Huge cab, (2x10 + 18).
 
#18
I've been using a Fender TB600 head on every gig for the last 2 months (up to 7 or 8 now I think), and the 215 Pro cab at some of the bigger ones. For small shows, I take my upgraded SWR Goliath Jr.2, loaded with Emminence Beta 10-Bs for 500W / 8 ohms.

It's solidly built, and very well thought out gear. The one weakness of the passive tone stack is that it's very hard to get a flat response, let alone boost the mids. So they included a footswitchable semi-parametric EQ to compensate. Kick in the overdrive channel, and maybe some 1.5k high-mids, and it gets very SVTish.

We had a mini GTG here in Brisbane, and so far as I could tell everybody was pleasantly surprised at the tone. Played anything from one of Phil Mailloux's custom 6 strings to a miked up doghouse through it :)

I posted two threads in the last few months, by the way.

c-
 

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